


The Heart and Warmth of the World

by aurora_chiroptera



Category: The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Established Relationship, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-27 14:54:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17164049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurora_chiroptera/pseuds/aurora_chiroptera
Summary: Written for the 2018 TLHOD Secret Santa-Genly makes a plan to get Therem home alive.Therem makes a plan to show Genly their love.





	1. Ice

**Author's Note:**

> This was for the wonderful TLHOD Secret Santa! The prompt was:  
> NSFW – Genly going after Estraven, riding as fast as they can 😉  
> SFW – Genly going after Estraven, riding as fast as they can ☹
> 
> I hope I met it, though I changed it a little bit- I had a wonderful time writing this!

Ice 1.  
“I want you to meet Sorve,” Therem said, looking up through their thick eyelashes at me. They sat close to me, even though they were in kemmer. Things between us had changed since I first used mind speech with them. There was no hiding my feelings for them. “When we get off the ice, I think it’s time I go home, if you would join me?”

Therem was always the braver of us two. They acted on the feelings I could no longer hide, and now we were more joined than ever. Our love, to each other, and our dedication, to the mission. It helped me melt every night when the cold pushed in from all sides.

“Genly,” Therem nudged me with their shoulder, trying to get my attention. I must seem a bit of a love struck fool to them, who has loved, as deeply, twice before.

“I would love to meet Sorve and your parent,” I said, pressing a kiss to their temple and watching their elegant handwriting. “I’m sure they both would look forward to seeing you at home once more.”

Therem nodded, focused back on their writing. But I could see a smile on their face. I wanted to make sure that they always had a reason to smile. Love made me giddy, and I wondered why I had avoided it for so long. But it was hard to imagine finding this, only to travel light years away and come back to where someone was long dead.

“Did you know,” I pressed closer, away from that thought. “There is a bit of history of envoys ending up staying on the planets they are stationed?”

“Why is that?” Therem closed their book and set it aside, turning to me and tugging, so that I rested my head in their lap.

“It’s common that great love is found,” I sighed, as they started to massage my temple, easing away the headache from the bright ice. “Usually romantic, but also sometimes platonic, familial. We are trained to know these worlds but not our own. I think it is human to search for a home.”

“Envoys come from many different planets?” Therem asked.

“Yes, though now that I think on it, there is a higher percentage of those from my Terra that find themselves staying on new worlds,” I turned, pressing my face into their stomach. “I think there is a sense, a lingering fear, of what happened to our world.”

Therem’s hands continued to stroke and massage, “The wars?”

“Yes, the wars and the injustices,” I pressed closer, thinking back to the histories that were taught, in attempt to never let such horrors occur again. “We also nearly ruined our planet.”

“But, you survived,” Therem’s voice was soft.

“Humanity is good at surviving,” I said. “Look at Gethen! Humanity here has adapted to the harsh cold. It’s the reverse on other worlds, those who survive great heat and drought. We need to do more than survive though.”

“Thus, creating the connections to other people,” Therem said. “And then, on the larger scale, to other worlds. That’s what I see the Ekumen doing for Gethen- they will help us do more than survive. They will help us grow and learn.”

“I am ashamed that I did not trust you sooner,” I said, for what must have been the hundredth time. It made me want to shout across the ice at my own stupidity.

“I’m very glad you trust me know,” Therem replied, before leaning down and pressing a kiss to my brow.

Ice 2.  
It is nearing the end of our journey that I realize I needed to add another goal to the plan, one that I couldn’t let Therem know. Because as it seemed we might actually survive the crossing, something changed. It seemed like Therem was saying goodbye. I was good at goodbyes, I had learned to be at a young age, so the signs were clear, especially with shifgrethor waved. The extra kindness in touch or in helping, the longing looks. But words, choppy now, less forthcoming. A distancing and saying goodbye.

Therem had lied to me. They did not think that they would survive our mission. I wondered if they wrote the words down for Sorve, or if they didn’t want to give away even there their belief that they would not make it out alive. I didn’t know what it was like to have a child, but I could guess that Therem might also have wanted to spare them the truth.

Operation Save Therem from Themself was going to be tricky, because it was clear that Therem saw their own value in what they could give now, not later. I needed to make them believe that the love we had was worth as much as our mission. That without them, our mission meant nothing in the scheme of things. I didn’t see how Karhide could enter the age of the Ekumen without Therem there to guide it. It might still happen, but it would take longer, be more complicated.

And I was tired. I had never been more tired than now, and I new I would find new ways to be tired by the end of tomorrow. I needed Therem, I always had. Now I just needed them in more ways than before. My resources were limited because of this. But what I did have was my love, the connection that we now shared. And I was going to put that to use.

“Can I write something to Sorve?” I asked, having finished a silent dinner and seeing Therem reach for their pen and paper.

Therem frowned at me, but passed over the tools. “What do you wish to write to them?”

“I want to tell them of their parent,” I opened to the next blank page. We were nearing the end, even in this book. “I hope to do this in person one day, but-”

“You will tell them in person,” Therem said, words heavy with a truth they believed. But they didn’t reach to take the paper and pen from me. Their belief couldn’t change reality, and that was why they kept writing to their child.

I looked at the page, mind running blank of the Karhidish I knew. But this wouldn’t work if I did not put it in our shared tongue. I needed Therem to be able to read it as much as Sorve. Taking a deep breath, I focused on my feelings and let them flow:

Dear Sorve,

I hope one day, possibly soon, this will be given to you by your parent. I wanted to write to you myself, because sometimes we don’t see ourselves as we should and I believe all stories have multiple points of view. I want to tell you about your parent.

Therem Harth rem ir Estraven is someone ahead of the times- or maybe the only person who understands them. They see the grand picture and will fight for it, even at the cost of themselves. They are no traitor- in the eyes of my people they would be a hero because of the lives they have saved. Therem sees not countries, but the people that flow between borders and their equal rights to live without fear. Therem looks passed where most get stuck on the idea of the other.

Therem, I think, is the one that can bring Gethen into the Ekumen. Into all those worlds beyond the stars that I am here trying to represent. Despite my own fumbles, your parent still sees all the good in what I bring. I find that I have never trusted someone more, nor have I cared for someone more. I am grateful that they have not judged my short fallings as a reason to give up. Instead, I hope it made me seem more human.

I don’t want Gethen to learn about war. I know the horrors it brings, living on a world scarred by it, still trying to recover from it. Therem will be the one, as far as I see, that can stop war as much as they are the one that can bring Gethen in with the Ekumen. I don’t think Karhide can do this without them.

I am writing this to tell you some facts, even if I don’t have the fancy words that I wish for. I want to tell you that your parent, my Therem, is brilliant and made more so by their kindness and goodness. I want to tell you that Therem is far seeing, and good at survival. They love you and your siblings so much, and I know they wish to be with you at your hearth. I hope they bring me one day and you will be able to show me the home they long for.

Sincerely,  
Envoy Genly Ai 

Ice 3.  
Therem was in kemmer once more. They seemed hesitant to reach out to me, and I would never force them into something that they did not want. But I also hoped to make love to them, to use this as another way to show Therem that I could not live without them. There had been no promises of kemmer between us, and maybe that was why I first began to suspect that Therem did not plan for this to last, because they did not see themselves getting out of it alive.

Therem’s body didn’t always know how to react to my hormones, there seemed to be no pattern on the form their body took. I had worried there would be something alien in our joining, that it would be a shock. But instead all I found was a closer human connection, one that I never had before. And I wanted to show them now how I felt, on the chance that they did not read the letter what I had written as much for them as Sorve.

When they did reach to me, finished with their writing, it was desperate in a way it never had been before. They had been gentle with me, taking care of my comfort and pleasure given my inexperience. But now, this, it was clear they needed all that care returned. Maybe they didn’t believe they deserved it, but it was what they needed.

Therem climbed onto my lap, and I laid down at their insistence, their hands tugging off my clothes. I reached up, feeling soft curves on their chest. They let me slip off their shirt and I turned my attention to their nipples, knowing now that they were particularly sensitive. Sucking and kissing, I made my way from one to the other.

I turned us so that I would have better access. Therem tugged off their leggings, and I took that as a sign to move my attention. But I took a moment to look at them, admire them spread out on my sleeping bag. Their dark eyes met mine, and a small smile came to their face. Long hair loose, framing the sharp, beautiful face. The smattering of hair between their breasts, the trail down towards their sexes. Beautiful brown skin broken here by a scar, there by a tattoo.

“Genly,” they said, voice rough and hips pushing towards me. “You can’t do this with your eyes alone.”

I put my hands on their hips, leaning to kiss the soft stomach that had grown far too thin in these months. Kissing down each thigh, I slowed the pace they had set. Pressing to their center, I listened to the music of their sighs as I showed them just how much I loved them.

Ice 4.  
“Genly,” Therem said, as we lay together in a spare bed of a small family’s hearth just off the ice. We were fed and I was oh so tired.

“Therem,” I mumble back, holding them close to me, for warmth and for fear they would soon leave me. But I didn’t need to worry, my plan had worked.

“I think we need to fake my death,” Therem said, rolling onto their side to face me. “I don’t... I don’t think I will make it back across the Karhide border otherwise.”

“You do not trust your friend?”

Therem sighed. “I heard a news report on the radio. Tibe has only increased their search for me.”

I pressed my forehead against their own. “My people will be able to help.”

“I worry that I won’t survive the wait,” their voice was quiet.

“You’ve always suspected this,” I wanted to sound accusing, but I had known, so it was flat with fact. “I wish you had talked to me about this sooner.”

Therem smiled at me, soft in the dim light of the small fireplace in the room. “You were trying to force the subject.”

“I can’t lose you,” I whispered back, voice breaking. I didn’t turn away though, I let my tears flow for them to see.

Gentle hands reached and wiped, before pulling me closer. Tucking my face into their shoulder, I let all the fear and heartache out. It was releasing poison, something I didn’t know had been eating at me so much. Therem rubbed my back and whispered to me until I pulled back to meet their eyes.

“I love you, Therem,” the strength had returned to my voice in those words. There was not a tremor in them, though my tears had not fully stopped.

They smiled at me then, a real smile with their own eyes slightly glassy with tears. “I know,” they murmured. “I love you too.”

“What’s your plan?”

“Well, they can’t kill me if they already think I’m dead...”


	2. Karhide

Karhide 1.  
Genly had gotten through to me something that Arek had always tried- that sometimes love is just as big and just as worthy as changing the world. No shifgrethor, no holding back. It was hard to change the way one has lived their whole life, but if Genly was able to do it for Gethen, than I can do so for him.

That’s how we concocted the story of my death on the Ice. Genly would go on without me, meeting my friend, selling the stove, calling his ship. He would bring the story of how I had fallen to rescue him, so close to making it out alive. He would have my unfinished letters to Sorve to prove my death, and I would keep the rest and continue writing.

I was putting all my trust in Genly, for both my life and the future of my planet. But it did not feel wrong, it felt natural. I knew in my heart that I wished for us to swear kemmering and move forward to unite our worlds, make as strong a connection between them as between us. But there would be a long wait still, where I would try and blend in to the north of my country, working in small hearths that were grateful for any extra hand as skilled as I in hunting.

Every night after Genly left, I sat by the radio. It was weeks until news went out that the Envoy from the Ekumen had been brought into custody. Tibe tried to turn this to something they could use, but Genly had several cards up his sleeve- painting me as a hero in death (though my name was never mentioned on the radio), his soon to land ship, and his treatment in Orgoreyn. Tibe was soon slinking away and Genly had the ear of the king, as far as I could make out.

There was one problem in the plan that I had left Genly to handle, as I hoped he now understood shifgrethor. His trust with Argaven would be lost, should it be revealed that I was still alive. Or so I had thought, until one night, in the space by the main hearth I had been granted, listening to the radio quietly:

/“Therem Harth rem ir Estraven, Lord of Estre in Kerm, by this order has their exile from the Kingdom lifted. Hereby all titles shall be returned to them, and any withholdings that are redeemable. Harth rem ir Estraven may once more be permitted to share words and hearth with any in the Kingdom and the countrypeople of Karhide are encouraged to assist them in their return home-”/

It continued and then repeated. The only words reaching me was that my exile was lifted and I could go home. I did not sleep that night, listening to the words instead until they sunk in as truth, and not a dream. The next day, I sold the furs that I had and began my trek to Erhenrang.

Karhide 2.  
Genly was the one who met me at the gates of Erhenrang. I had been able to send word ahead of me, but only told him of my exact time of arrival. I wouldn’t put it past Tibe to still have agents situated to try and stop me.

Genly’s face lit up as soon as he saw me, and he ran towards me. The love I held flared, the very sight of him kindling to the constant burning embers. I found myself running as well and then he swept me up into his arms. Taller than I, and stronger. He kissed me and I kissed him back, though I was not in kemmer it was just a way to give affection, grounding. He set me on my feet and held me close, whispering “I love you, I love you,” over and over in my ear.

I cried because I was home, I was home, I was home.

*~*

Argraven wanted to meet with me once I had a few days to rest after my journey and caught up on the politics of court. There was certainly a good deal to catch up on, considering an alien spaceship had landed outside the city. I learned that Genly had always told the king the truth of my survival, letting them feel as though they were in on the plot. I also found Genly was temporarily set up in my old lodgings, which should have been a clue to what my meeting would be like.

Argraven did not stand when I crossed the room to meet them. A great sadness hung about them, and I remembered that the year past had brought many sorrows, even for the king. I knelt and rested my hand on Argraven’s arm, trying to imagine the heartbreak of losing a child you had carried. I had only bore one child, and truly could not imagine a world without Sorve.

“I grieve with you,” I told them, keeping my tone quiet, nonthreatening. 

Argraven turned and looked down at me, then nodded. They believed me, and that was a start. “Please take a seat.”

I complied, settling in the less ornate chair across from them.

“Tibe... they used my sorrow against me,” Argraven shook their head, the fire showing the hallows in their cheeks. They seemed so sunken from the person that I remembered. “They used a lot of things against me. I can not appear weak, but your Ekuman has been convincing in their wisdom.”

I stopped a smile at ‘my.’ “He knows our people better now, and he still wants to help.”

“I can’t trust them and their alien ways, but it is a reality that must be faced,” Argraven said, and I found myself frustrated that they would not use masculine pronouns for Genly. “Genly has... advocated that I once more make you prime minister.”

I couldn’t hide all the surprise from my face. He had not mentioned this to me. “That is your choice, of course.”

“Of course,” Argraven said, shifting to sit a little taller in their chair. “But I agree with them. You are the person with the most expertise in this subject. While I find myself... regretting some of the actions Tibe recommended to me, I still don’t trust you. Except in the matter of aliens, which seems to be the matter of the day.” They reached then, into their robes, and took out the chain of office, passing it to me. “I don’t want to make a big deal of this, because I would rather not lose any more face.”

I swallowed, accepting the chain and slipping it around my neck. “I will honor you and Karhide.”

Argraven nodded, then waved their hand. “Please leave. And don’t make me regret this.”

Karhide 3.  
I find myself sitting across the table from Lang Heo Hew, who I understood to be something of the leader of the group from Genly’s ship. She was a woman, but seemed no different from Genly other than a softness in her form and the use of different pronouns. She was lighter in skin, but I knew that wasn’t a trait of gender as there was another woman in the crew whose skin was darker than Genly’s. Ms. Lang was of Terra, like Genly, and seemed to be closest to him.

She was also my main contact, besides Genly himself, with the Ekumen. We had finished the work of the day, and Lang had asked me to stay for dinner.

“Are these dishes from Terra?” I asked, as another one of the crew set them in front of us before going back to whatever work e had taken a break from to cook.

“O actually,” Land said, moving to put some of the food on the plate in front of me. “They have a very meat based diet in their mountains that I thought would not be too alien.”

I nodded, accepting what she put on my plate. “Genly didn’t know how to explain women to me.”

Lang snorts a laugh as she fills her own plate. She waits till I take a bite before doing so herself, a thoughtful look on her face. “Does he think us aliens?”

“How he described you... yes,” I chuckled. “Though, he is quite alien himself.”

She smirked, and said, “Not too alien.”

I nodded again, smiling. “To be my partner? No.”

“I think he still had a lot to figure out, about his own identity and place,” Lang said after taking another bite. “He seems more happy than I have seen him before. And we have worked together for sometime. All crews must work well together and know each other before setting forth.”

“A wise policy. You must trust those who travel through the void with you,” I said.

“He has grown in these years on Winter,” Lang smiled, and it is full of warmth. “To me it seems he has grown into who he is meant to be. We always need to learn, but he is on his way.” She was silent then, but set down her utensils. Studying me, she finally added, “You will be good to him?”

I nodded once more, because it is an easy answer. “Always.”

She smiled. “Good.”

“I wanted to ask you about something, being from Terra yourself...”

“Yes?”

“It’s about how relationships work.”

Karhide 4.  
“I have asked for us to take time off for a vacation,” I said, as Genly and I sat drinking tea for breakfast. “And Argaven has agreed.”

Genly smiled, setting his cup aside. “Where are we to go?”

“Kermland,” I flicked my eyes up to him. “If you agree.”

“I still have the letters,” he reached a hand to me and laced our fingers together. He was lucky that he did not lose any in the crossing. “And Heo Haw will be able to keep things under control.”

“She certainly will,” I stood then. “Would you be ready to leave in two days time? We might be able to catch the end of spring in the mountains.”

*~*

I didn’t know what it would be like coming back Estre after all this time. I clutched close to me the book of letters to Sorve, including the one from Genly. In my free hand, I held Genly’s. We are both in summer furs from our ski in. I thought that after the ice, Genly may never want to ski again. But instead, he had taken to it and wanted to master it.

We had left the skis at the base of the hill, and walked now. The sky was cloudy, but no rain or snow threatened. The trees on the slopes were releasing pollen, branches ruffling against each other and the stone side of my childhood home. The home that was now my child’s.  
I tugged at Genly’s hand, releasing the pack with the letters at the same time so that it hung at my side. He turned to me, eyes worried and questioning. He had been giving me such care, understanding that this exile, self exile, was harder to break. He let me take the lead, supported me through my worries. I knew this was what I wanted, as I went through the motions Lang walked me through.

Kneeling in the snow, I took Genly’s hand with me. He’s face turned to surprise, and his free hand went to cover his mouth. He didn’t pull away, so I took that as a good sign. Reaching into my pocket, I took out the silver band I had purchase with a line of small pale blue sapphires. It reminded me of the glaciers on the ice.

“I wanted to do this right, in both of our costumes,” I said. “I wanted to ask... to promise kemmering with you, if you want the same.”

Genly started crying, a tear slipping down his face. Then he was on the ground with me, tugging me forward and pressed a kiss to my lips. “I do, I want this, I want you,” he said, pulling away.

I know I am crying now too, and maybe I should have waited to do this. But I needed to know, that he would be at my side. That it was a promise, because I knew he would keep it. “I love you,” I whispered, slipping the ring to the finger Lang said was significant.

“I love you Therem,” Genly said, nudging his forehead with his own. We knelt there, holding each other and breathing. Genly was the one to break it. “Now... let’s go see Sorve before our pants soak through.”

I looked at the snow, and chuckled, standing and pulling Genly with me. “Yes. I’m ready.”

And we set off together, for an adventure of a different kind.


End file.
